


Not Even If You Were The Last Human Being Alive

by Lurky McLurklurk (ionlylurkhere)



Category: Red Dwarf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1641212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionlylurkhere/pseuds/Lurky%20McLurklurk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rimmer's new hard light drive gives him new opportunities . and new problems.  Can Lister help?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Even If You Were The Last Human Being Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Written for MistoKitt

 

 

Lister doublechecked the scanner -- nothing but a few grains of spacedust for at least the next two light years -- and flipped on the autopilot. Starbug's navicomp could cope with going in a straight line for a couple of hours ... hopefully. He stretched with a yawn, then pushed the steering column away and clambered out of his seat.

He made his way down to the cargo hold, where he found Kryten on his hands and knees, folding what at first looked to be laundry. But on closer inspection whatever it was he was folding seemed to be made of pink plastic.

"Whatcha doin', Kryten?"

"Mr. Rimmer asked me to put Rachel away, sir." Looking closer, Lister recognised the deflated crinkles of her breasts. "Unless you'd like me to keep her out for you ..."

"Rimmer's sloppy inflatable seconds? No thanks." Since Rimmer had suddenly become tangible again during their encounter with Legion, he'd been exploring several of the options that had been closed off to him since his death. Loudly enough to stop Lister from sleeping, some nights. "One puncture too many, eh?" he asked with a small laugh.

"No, sir, Mr. Rimmer just seems to have lost interest in her. Though not before he'd caused a wide range of intriguing stains. The verisimilitude of the hard light drive's simulations is really quite remarkable."

"Yeah, thanks for that image, Kryten."

"That's quite all right, sir," the mechanoid said. It was probably an intentional joke, Lister told himself. Probably. "Would you like me to prepare you dinner?"

"No thanks, Kryten."

"A small snack? ... A drink?"

"I'm OK, thanks," said Lister distractedly.

"Are you sure, sir? My internal records show that you have only turned down offers of refreshment on 0.43% of previous occasions."

Lister smiled slightly. "I'm fine, Kryten. See you later."

* * *

Walking into the science lab that had become their artificial reality suite, Lister saw Cat was fully plugged into the equipment. His hips were gyrating wildly, which meant he was playing either Dance Star 3000 or Temple of Venus. Donning the gloves and hooking the bulky headset over his eyes, Lister quickly discovered that it was the latter. The dimly-lit room that appeared around him was festooned with bulky red velvet curtains as far as the eye could see, with silk-sheeted beds littered at intervals through it. Cat was stretched out on one of them, basking in the attention of a group of women showing just how many ways it was possible to wear very little indeed.

"Hey, buddy!" Cat shouted. "Come and join the fun!" One of the artificial beauties who wasn't doing something filthy to Cat right that second sauntered over to him and made the same invitation in a rather different way.

Lister brushed her aside irritably. "Exactly how long have you been here, Cat?"

"I dunno, ape-dude. How long have I been here, girls?"

"Not long enough, Mr. Cat," said the girl nearest Cat's head, his top right nipple plopping out of her mouth as she lifted her head to speak, "not nearly long enough."

Lister rolled his eyes. "Your body out there in the real world still needs to eat and drink and sleep, you know."

"That's what goalpost-head said. Well, not exactly what he said. He kept calling me decadent and indolent ... but I don't think he meant it as a compliment."

Lister was taken aback. "Rimmer was here?"

"For a bit."

"Did he ...?"

"I think he got his panties in a bunch when the software produced a dominatrix for him without him asking." Temple of Venus was very good at what it did, including constructing an ideal partner to suit a player's mood, whether they were aware of that mood or not. It could be rather disconcerting.

As Lister rediscovered for himself now, suddenly finding that the fake girl still trying to drape herself over him was fully dressed in jeans, an old T-shirt and a leather jacket. "C'mon, Dave," she said, "let's get rid of these losers and go and 'ave a beer!"

"Another time, eh?" Lister made the always faintly ridiculous gesture needed to reach in front of his head and remove the AR kit. Blinking slightly at coming back to reality, he cast a final glimpse at Cat's absurd twisting and turning and left the lab.

* * *

When Lister reached the galley, he found Rimmer's actions a surprising match for Cat's. Except that instead of artificial women, the object of Rimmer's attentions seemed to be the input port of the recycling unit. Lister couldn't quite tell, but it looked like his trousers were undone.

Lister watched, waiting with mounting amusement for the perfect moment of highest possible excruciating embarrassment for Rimmer. He judged it had come when he switched from gyrating against the hole to frantic thrusts back and forward. He coughed and said, "Are you all right there, Rimmer, or do you need a hand?"

"Gah!" Rimmer jumped up, adjusted his crotch as unobtrusively as he could (not very) and turned to face him. "Lister, ah, yes, good. I've just been checking the efficiency of the recyclers, as you can see. And I'm sorry to say that it's not what it should be. Not what it should be _at all_. All I can say is that it's a good thing somebody on board this vessel has a sense of duty about maintenance. I just find it rather ironic that it's me, given that _I'm_ the one who can quite happily survive without it when all's said and done. It's almost," he said, voice rising in pitch as he reached _a_ climax, even if it wasn't the one he'd originally been heading towards, "as though you didn't listen to anything I ever told you when we were Technicians!"

"Riiight," Lister said slowly, really relishing drawing out the vowel sound.

"Oh, smeg it!" Rimmer shouted. "I'm frustrated, OK, Lister? I can feel things again -- finally! -- but now it turns out I can't _feel_ anything. I can't ... get excited. Rachel was fine for a little while--" several weeks, Lister thought to himself "--but when it comes down to it she's just a lump of plastic. And those Temple of Venus girls are no better. They're just software simulations, not ... real. Deep down, whatever they're doing I know that all their responses are just programming." Lister tactfully refrained from pointing out that Rimmer was pretty much exactly the same thing.

"Yeah, Cat said the programme tried to give you some leather-bound Teutonic type with short blonde hair." Lister was speculating on the details, but the look on Rimmer's face told him he wasn't far from the mark. "But are you really telling me that you think you need to be interacting with someone real with their own mind to be able to get properly turned on? I do believe you're turning into ... what's the word? A person. And after only three million years, too!"

"Very funny, Lister."

"You know, there are real people around these parts."

There was a moment of significant silence in which they looked at each other, each uncertain. "Are you offering what I think it is you're offering?" Rimmer asked.

Lister looked away. "Maybe." He shuffled awkwardly. "Why, would you take me up on it if I was?"

"Not even," Rimmer said, enunciating every word precisely, "if you were the last human being alive."

"Hey! I _am_ the last human being alive."

"Exactly!" Rimmer said happily, and walked out of the room, rubbing his hands together with satisfaction at proving his point.

"Smeghead!" Lister shouted after him half-heartedly.

* * *

After his shift in the cockpit was over, Lister lay back on his bunk, failing to sleep and firmly telling himself not to worry about it. It wasn't like Rimmer was going to tell the others -- no way he could without it being embarrassing for him too -- and, come to think of it, it wasn't as though it _would_ be embarrassing anyway. Not compared to some of the things they'd all found out about each other thanks to polymorphs and psirens and mind probes.

Closing his eyes, he started his tried and tested going-to-sleep trick of going through all the London Jets' starting line-ups he could remember. So he was only dimly aware of the door sliding open and closed, and only opened his eyes again when he felt a presence in the semi-darkness next to him.

Rimmer was standing -- in a weird sort of way, very close but not _that_ close -- mouth opening and closing, opening and closing, like a particularly stupid goldfish.

Lister swung himself round so that he was sat on the side of his bunk. "Rimmer, what are you doing?"

"I've been thinking," Rimmer said eventually. "About your offer."

"Oh?"

"Is it still ... on offer?"

Lister suddenly realised his mouth had gone dry and his heart was pumping like crazy. "Depends," he said as evenly as he could manage.

"And what would it depend on?"

Lister's body seemed to be responding far ahead of his mind. But for all that his physiological responses were distracting his thought processes, he decided to try his luck. "Whether you're prepared to apologise."

"Sorry," Rimmer said, the word coming out as a half-swallowed garble.

"Not just like that," Lister said.

"Like how then?" Rimmer snapped.

"Well, if you want me to do something for you after being so rude to me earlier, I think you should do something for me first."

"You mean ...?"

"I mean."

Rimmer tilted his head to one side, as though considering. "OK, then." He got down onto his knees and busied himself undoing Lister's trousers. When he pulled Lister's already semi-erect cock out, he looked at it for a long time.

Lister felt his arousal starting to fade again at the intensity of this scrutiny. "Well, don't just kneel there, do something!" he said.

"Sorry." Rimmer shook his head as if to clear it. "It's just that for such a smeggy goit, I was surprised how unsmeggy you are." And then, before Lister could come back with a sarky response, he leaned forward ever-so-slightly so that his lips wrapped around the end of Lister's cock.

Lister groaned slightly at the intensity of the sensations engendered by Rimmer's mouth, which was wet but not particularly warm. As he continued, Rimmer became bolder, sliding his mouth further up Lister's ever-stiffening shaft. In response, Lister found himself automatically grabbing Rimmer's curly hair, pulling his head gently back and forth.

After about five minutes of this, Lister pushed Rimmer away at the end of one outward stroke. His hard cock, slathered with saliva, bobbed upwards slightly as it came out of Rimmer's mouth. "Stand up," he said, and when Rimmer did, "Turn around." Rimmer bent forward slightly and gripped the wall with both hands; Lister got up from the bunk to stand behind him.

Reaching out, Lister grabbed Rimmer's surprisingly firm arse. He reached around to try and pull down Rimmer's trousers, but found nothing to gain a purchase on.

"Wait a second," Rimmer said, and with a sudden burst of concentration he became instantaneously fully naked, his clothes disappearing completely. "There, that's better."

"Much," Lister agreed. He pushed his own trousers down around his ankles and shuffled closer to Rimmer, until the head of his cock was resting against the cheeks of his arse. "Ready?" he asked.

Rimmer nodded, and without further ado Lister slid himself inside. Slowly at first, and then with increasing confidence as he realised that something -- maybe the strange not-quite-real spit, or Rimmer's own subconscious -- was making things slipperier than he might have expected.

Lister extended his arm around and gripped Rimmer's erect holographic cock. "So, _that's_ why they call it a hard light drive," he said. After appreciating its rigid bulk for a second, he started stroking it firmly in time with the motions of his own hips.

"Shut up, Lister." Stroke, thrust.

"You know you love it really." Stroke, thrust.

"No, no, I don't love it at all." Stroke, thrust. "In fact, if you were to list all of the things I love--" stroke, thrust "--becoming sexually involved with a walking, talking waste of DNA like you--" stroke, thrust "--would appear nowhere at all on that list."

"Liar." Stroke. Thrust.

Rimmer made a small strangulated sort of noise and Lister got to see for himself the accuracy of the drive's simulation of an orgasm as a streak of fake semen hit the wall. With a final thrust, he reached his own climax deep inside Rimmer's arse. After a moment, they collapsed back onto the bunk, their bodies separating again.

For a while, neither spoke.

It was Lister who broke the silence. "You're not worrying that we've broken any Space Corps directives, are you? I mean, they do all seem to be designed to prevent people having fun."

"No," Rimmer said. "I was actually worrying whether you were going to decide we shouldn't do this again. After all, it was rather ... satisfying."

"Well, thank you for that fulsome praise," Lister laughed. He paused. "So ... are you saying you would like to do that again some time?"

"Lister, I'd want to do that again even if you _weren't_ the last human being alive."

 


End file.
